


(Never) Too Late

by highlinson



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Background story, F/M, M/M, bullshit, bullshit tweet, eww I know, fight, larry - Freeform, side elounor - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-17
Updated: 2014-03-17
Packaged: 2018-01-16 03:29:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1330237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/highlinson/pseuds/highlinson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>That did it for Harry, hearing Louis say he didn’t want to danger their friendship and choosing to do something which made the whole situation even worse. He didn’t even know what he was doing before it was too late, and he was watching Louis stumble back, both their eyes wide with shock and disbelief.</p><p> </p><p>Or, the story behind the famous "Bullshit" tweet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(Never) Too Late

**Author's Note:**

> Although I never wrote this on any other of my works I want to say here that this is completely fictional and I don't think nor want that this has ever actually happened. Harry and Louis are all safe in their little purple bubble of love, la la laaa.
> 
> Anyway, enjoy! :)

„I’m going out, “Louis said before the sound of a heavy door being closed echoed throughout the flat. He didn’t say where exactly he would be going to, nor with whom, but that wasn’t really necessary seeing he had spent the past few weeks with none other than Eleanor.

Not bothering to bid him some half-hearted goodbye, Harry slumped down on their old, comfy couch as usual, turning the volume of the TV up in hopes of drowning the loud bustling of his own thoughts.

He missed the old times, back when it was easy, when Louis would stay in on their days off, since that was a thing that happened rather rarely, and they would spend the whole day cuddled up watching some cheap horror movie and pretending not to be scared.

Now, whenever they had time to themselves, Louis would either spend it with his girlfriend or, if she happened to be busy, he would always find somebody to go out and about with him.

If Harry was realistic, he’d say that Louis avoided him. But he still is the young at heart, naïve boy he’d been when he auditioned for the X-Factor, infamous back then, with similar hopes, dreams and beliefs to now, and his sight of the world hadn’t really changed either.

So, Louis was not avoiding him, just enjoying the perks of travelling as a rich pop star, which was completely normal for people his age. In fact, a lot of people never shut up about how Harry should go out more, Nick Grimshaw being probably the most persistent one, shooting him a text every other night about wanting to go clubbing and Harry had more and more trouble each day finding a believable excuse.

When Louis returned in the early hours of the next morning, Harry was already fast asleep on his familiar spot on the sofa, the TV still illuminating the room with a soft gleam of silver and blue, light flashing every other second due to the change of advertisements, sound still up on very loud, not waking Harry, though, who was snoring softly, curled up in himself.

He woke up from the sound of a door being closed some minutes later, though, despite being able to sense that there had been an attempt at shutting it softly, and he dragged himself to bed eventually, knowing he’d regret it if he stayed on the couch, his neck and back already hurt enough from all those nights spent on buses, trains and planes.

 

The next morning, Harry was the first one to get up, something not too unusual seeing how Louis was a late riser anyway whenever he could and him having gone to bed way later than his friend the night before.

Sighing, Harry entered the kitchen freshly showered and started preparing himself a simple dish of ham and eggs.

He knew that Louis couldn’t cook to save his life, that he would even burn toast despite the toaster having the timer set exactly, but since there was never an effort being made in eating his food served for two people he had given up on that, too.

When Harry had already finished the meal which had gotten a bit too salty, Louis stepped into the kitchen, dark grey T-Shirt askew and hair flat on one side he supposedly had spent the majority of his night on, eyes blinking heavily in an attempt at getting used to the light sneaking its way in through the half-closed louvres.  
The taller boy shot him a close-lipped smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes, earning a nod from Louis. Harry held back a sigh, trying hard not to think about how only months ago they would wake up in one bed draped all over the other, giggling and then hurrying to get something to eat, all the while connected at the hip, as best friends should be.

Now, though, it didn’t feel like best friends to Harry, not at all, sometimes, when he had a lot of time and space to think, on yet another night the flat got left behind cold and abandoned by his – he refused to say it out aloud but – former best friend, he found that he quite possibly had a better relationship with a stranger he’d never met before. After that, he wouldn’t let himself ponder any further, because he would get too sad.

As often, at least lately, Louis opened the fridge, the usual creaking noise accompanying it, and got himself a bowl of muesli.

This time, though, Harry got surprised even more since Louis just stayed glued to the spot he was currently occupying, leaning against the cool wooden surface of the kitchen cabinet.

Although he really tried to stay composed, Harry couldn’t help asking, “Not even sitting next to me, now, are you? Funny, considering that used to upset you...”

And okay, maybe it was a bit harsh of him to bring up that one day where they wanted to sit next to each other but some stupid worker of their management had told them they weren’t allowed to, because it did affect them both, although not equally, but it did, having caused them to be down for the rest of the week.

Raising his eyebrows at the very obvious ironic note to that question, Louis spoke up, eyes not glistening as they used to when he was being challenged, but still his tongue-in-cheek answer resembled his old self.

“Well, ’s not that you made any more food than for yourself, is it?”

“I figured you didn’t need it since you don’t even eat half of it, lately,” argued Harry, equally sarcastic.

“Sorry for not being hungry?!”

“Well, you can as well have breakfast with your girlfriend, then!”

Louis looked shocked at that for a moment before composing himself,

“What’s that to do with her now, anyway?”

“Because it always has! Don’t you see that she’s basically taken over your whole life?”

“Bullshit!” Louis exclaimed, and of course he had to use these exact words, words that were still breaking Harry’s heart when he would hear or see them.

 

Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit.

That was how Louis saw the whole "Larry Stylinson" situation. It could get quite ridiculous, sure, with the fans being all over observant and seeing ghosts where it was only slightly foggy and shadows in the night time, but they had always played it off as a joke, laughed about it when they were curled up into their usual ball in their very own bubble of harryandlouis, which had been the most normal thing in the world for them back then. And suddenly Louis claimed all this as complete and utter bullshit.

See, Harry wasn’t stupid, he had realised early that there was no future involving Louis as anything other than his best mate, but he still liked to entertain himself with the idea of them maybe, possibly, under these and those circumstances, ending up together, in a romantic way, of course.

But that day, all his dreams had vanished, his heart being broken without the one who did it even noticing, and he couldn’t say a thing about it because he’d give himself away.

By now, he wished that he had said something, told Louis about his feeling right away instead of keeping them bottled up without any chance to ever escape. But he’d been too scared of ruining their friendship, which was understandable, but he’d prefer them breaking ways because of reasonable things to ignoring each other because one couldn’t stand up to his feelings and the other one being irritated by that.

 

Finally, Harry snapped, he could almost feel the jar that was somewhere inside of him bursting, all the suppressed feelings from the last weeks, months, years trying to get out.

“You say that quite often, don’t you, now?”

His voice was bitter and quivering at the edges, his hands trembling from anger, hurt and grief and his vision started to fog up despite his attempts at keeping his tears at bay.

“What does that mean, now? Don’t talk in riddles!”, Louis shouted exasperatedly, arms flying up high in the air trying to get his point across.

“Well, since you say all this is bullshit, that we are bullshit, that I am, I’m wondering why you even bother talking to me at all, you basically live with Eleanor,” he paused briefly at that, partly shocked about the venom in his voice himself, partly to stay kind and polite and not insulting her in front of Louis who, after all, claimed to love her, “so why don’t you just move in with her?”

“Woah, woah, never did I say that you were bullshit! I was just tired of always hearing I was cheating and the insults made about Eleanor. Hell, I even started questioning myself if our relationship was healthy!”

“And then you just decided to not have one altogether??”, Harry interrupted, voice trembling audibly now, tears pooling in the corners of his eyes.

Louis, who was avoiding the green irises boring holes into him through salty, bitter tears, picked up again, this time a tad quieter, “I just, I didn’t want it to affect our relationship...”

That did it for Harry, hearing Louis say he didn’t want to danger their friendship and choosing to do something which made the whole situation even worse. He didn’t even know what he was doing before it was too late, and he was watching Louis stumble back, both their eyes wide with shock and disbelief.

Slowly, Harry let his gaze wander from his right hand that still was high up in the air to Louis, who backed away quite a bit and held his left cheek, the skin peeking through his fingers tinted red.

It was as if the laws of physics have been abrogated since Harry thought to still be able to hear the slap echo through their flat.

Then, there was dead silence in which they just stared at the other, both having tears stream down their faces, until Louis, voice all timid and so utterly broken and done now it hurt Harry’s soul, whispered, “You hit me.”

And Harry just nodded, not being able to do anything else than admit that he did that one thing he’d been trying to avoid all this time, hurting Louis, although until now he had thought of it on a psychological base.

Harry made a slow, tentative step towards Louis, but the shorter boy flinched at the movement, causing more hot tears to escape Harry’s tired, dull eyes. In spite of the fact that Louis was still expecting another punch which made the younger boy’s heart break over and over again, he scooted closer, burying Louis in a bone-crushing hug despite his weak protest.

After a few seconds, Louis relaxed into the embrace, and they stood there for some moments, enjoying their sadly unusual closeness and soaking each other with their tears of anger, pain and frustration.

“What’s happened to us?”, Louis, again the first one to say something, questioned.

“I don’t know, Lou,” Harry responded, the old nickname leaving his lips so effortlessly as if it had been used in every hour of every day.

And Harry knew that this was it, his last chance, the last straw, the only thing left to get out of the misery they’d somehow gotten themselves in. He took a deep despite shaky breath,

“I’m so fucking sorry.”

“Don’t be, you have every re-“

“No, no I don’t. There neither is nor will there ever be a reason justifying somebody hurting you, even less me, your best friend!” The last part was only breathed, and it made them both cringe inwardly at how unfamiliar the use of that phrase had become to them.

“But you’re right, I spend way too much time with Eleanor, which-“

Louis didn’t continue, just let out a sad laugh that made him seem somehow a little maniac.

“See, Haz, I really, really want us to fix whatever it is we’re obviously having troubles with, and I do realise that what I’m about to say is probably just gonna make it worse, and –“

“Just go ahead, Lou”, Harry said, familiar shy smile grazing his lips at Louis’ usual rambling.

“The funny thing – completely ironically funny, though! – is that I was over at El’s so much because I wanted to work this out with you.”

Harry furrowed his eyebrows, obviously confused, but he let Louis continue anyway, hoping he’d explain himself soon.

“She advised me to tweet that stupid bullshit tweet, convinced me it will make things easier, but it obviously didn’t. Harry, I, I always was the one to deny any feelings that were rumoured to be between us, and I got tired of it, tired of, of lying, so I thought that if I finally told everyone that there was absolutely nothing that they’d believe it, that even I’d believe it.”

Letting the words sink in, Harry chewed at his bottom lip in an old habit, all the while looking at Louis who had averted his eyes towards the floor during his little speech.

“What do you want to say with that?”, Harry asked, a spark of hoping being lighted somewhere inside him, young, naive hope, of course, but hope nonetheless.

“Harry, I’m in love with you, and I’ve been since the very beginning. I’m so fucking sorry for having ruined our friendship and for fucking it up now when we have the ability to fix it, but I had to let you know why I was behaving so stupidly. Being away from you just made me want you harder, though, so...”

He quieted down, his head now completely turned to the floor, fresh tears building up in his eyes. Suddenly, he felt a long, cool finger lifting his chin up ever so slightly, forcing him to lock his blue eyes with Harry’s green but equally red-rimmed ones that were leaking new tears just now.

“You idiot, I’ve been in love with you, too.”

Eyes widening, Louis was quick to ask, “What? Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Well, obviously you‘re with Eleanor, or at least that’s what you made everyone believe, and I didn’t want to risk our friendship, and then it was too late.”

“It’s never too late,” whispered Louis, this time staring straight into Harry’s eyes, his soul, and he only closed them as they finally locked their lips together in a loving kiss full of the need of showing the other their emotions without using words.

**Author's Note:**

> It's half past midnight here and a weekday so I'm sorry if this is complete and utter rubbish and I wasted your time.
> 
> If it's not, though, I'd love to see some kudos and maybe even comments here :) xx


End file.
